Modelling the Distribution of Biodiversity under Global Change
The course will provide students training in the scope of macroecology and bioclimatic modelling to infer and discuss the interactions and potential impacts of global climate changes (past, ongoing and future) on the different levels of marine biodiversity (i.e., from genes to ecosystems). It is mostly hands-on oriented, with a strong component on biodiversity and climatic data acquisition, management and visualization (e.g., the new Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios of climate change), as well as on ecological and species distribution modelling using state of the art algorithms (e.g., machine learning).
Students will be motivated to bring their own datasets.
The course is organized in three parts.
- Part 1 consists of lectures and hands-on oriented coding in R computing language.
- Part 2 consists of a written assignment that is an individual research study addressing (1) the interactions between, or (2) the impacts of, global climate changes on marine biodiversity.
- Part 3 consists of an oral plenary presentation based on the individual assignment.
Students must have fundamental elementary knowledge on marine ecology and statistics.
Admission to the course follows the admission requirement of the study programme Master in Biosciences.
Knowledge:
- Has advanced knowledge of biodiversity modeling, with theoretical expertise in how environmental and climate changes impact biodiversity.
- Can understand and communicate current theories on macroscale environmental conditions and their effects on biodiversity, including how biodiversity responds to changing environments.
Skills:
- Can extract, manage and visualize marine biodiversity and bioclimatic data, and in applying niche theory to develop mechanistic and correlative bioclimatic models.
- Can assess bioclimatic models' strengths, limitations and transferability across space and time.
- Can use methods to integrating physiological data into hybrid models, predicting invasive processes, and analyzing ecological niche overlap to infer drivers of niche evolution is essential.
General Competencies:
- Can judge the implications of research methods and understand how biodiversity will respond to environmental changes.
- Can effectively communicate and defend results through publications and reports.
- Can articulate findings on biodiversity distribution and evolutionary impacts to diverse audiences.
- Can communicate the impacts of global climate change on marine biodiversity, ensuring methodological rigor and good practices for parameterization and evaluation.
Online teaching. Face-to-face oral plenary presentations.
The course combines theoretical foundations with hands-on R programming to build expertise in marine biodiversity modeling and climate change ecology. Activities and methods are structured to progressively develop skills and understanding.
Lecture Sessions (25% of each class):
Foundational lectures introduce key concepts, including ecological niche theory, species distribution modeling (SDM), and climate change impacts on biodiversity.
Case studies highlight applications of SDMs and niche analyses to real-world marine biodiversity challenges.
R Programming Sessions (75% of each class):
Guided coding to explore marine biodiversity and climate data acquisition, cleaning, and visualization.
Parameterization of correlative and mechanistic SDMs, model evaluation, and performance analysis using R.
Niche overlap and diversification analyses.
Scenario-based exercises on projecting climate change impacts and discussing uncertainty.
A final project synthesizes lecture and coding components, with students developing and evaluating SDMs, projecting climate change impacts, and presenting their results
Compound assessment, grading rule: A–F.
Assessment task (written assignment) accounts for 60/100 of the grade, grading rule Letter grades A–F.
Oral exam (As an oral presentation), accounts for 40/100 of the grade, grading rule Letter grades A–F.